Is It Worth It to Upgrade Your Older Power Mac?

- 2003.04.25

When you first bought your Mac, you probably didn't even think
about how in only a few years it would become just as "outdated" as
the computer you had been using before. A few years go by
relatively quickly, and all of a sudden you find that your computer
can't do as much as newer models can.

Is it worth upgrading or not?

Since the value of upgrading an older machine diminishes as it
ages (which means it's changing all the time), it's hard to tell
whether it's worthwhile installing some new components that might
give the machine another year or more of life.

Pre-G3 Power Macs

In the case of pre-G3 Macs, I'd say only a few are really worth
upgrading. These include the 9500 and
9600, but the 73-7600 series have
little going for them when it comes to upgrades. Yes, they will
accept the same upgrade cards as the other 9500 and 9600, but they
only have three PCI slots and two drive bays (one if you have a Zip
drive installed), so you don't get any major benefit by giving them
some more life. 9500s and 9600s, on the other hand, have six PCI
slots (five plus the video card), so many more things can be
installed.

G3 Power Macs

Power Mac G3s are often worth upgrading. Since the processor
uses a ZIF socket, you can usually use a faster G3 processor from
another machine (G4 processors from the
Yikes! G4 aren't compatible) or a
third party G4 upgrade.

Hard drives in the Power Mac G3s are IDE, so they are available
very reasonably. I just ordered a 40 GB drive for my G3 tower for
US$54.

RAM is also cheap, as the G3s are compatible with standard PC100
or PC133 memory. Upgrading to several hundred megabytes shouldn't
cost more than US$30-40.

Prioritize

I recommend upgrading the RAM and the hard drive first, as it is
usually these - not the processor - that make the computer feel the
slowest. Replacing the hard drive could cut startup time in half,
and adding RAM usually makes menus, folders, and applications open
much more quickly and smoothly.

If it still feels slow after that, there are a number of
processor upgrade options to look at. Sonnet Technologies offers
several. For $600 you can upgrade your old G3 to a 1 GHz G4,
and for $170 you can upgrade to a 500 MHz G3 processor. For $300,
Newer Technology offers a 550 MHz G4 processor.

What About OS X?

If you plan on running OS X, you may not want to use your G3's
standard video. Most beige G3s came
with 2 MB of VRAM, which isn't really enough for Aqua. This
can be upgraded to 6 MB, or you could just buy a PCI video
card for the machine. If you have a blue
and white G3, the video card has 16 MB, which is fine for basic
things in OS X, but if you deal with graphics or video, you
might consider a better one.

Upgrade or Replace?

If you have never upgraded your system in the past, you might
want to think twice about upgrading it now, especially if it was a
low-end model to begin with. On PCs, you can replace your
motherboard, processor, and hard drive to come up with a completely
new machine. You can't do that on the Mac, so if you haven't
invested somewhat heavily in the past on the hardware you already
have, you might be better off buying a completely new machine or a
used machine similar to yours with some of the upgrades already
installed (this usually ends up being cheaper than if you were to
upgrade your own).

Unfortunately, without an under-$1000 model, Apple computers
aren't exactly what I would call affordable right now. You
occasionally see G4 Macs (usually "Yikes!" models) on the used market for around $700, so this is
an option to consider - especially if you plan on spending almost
that much upgrading an old beige G3. The G4 has built in USB,
FireWire, 100Base-T ethernet, and often DVD, which most beige G3s
did not have. It's an option to consider if you just want a more
up-to-date Mac and don't need a whole lot of speed.